India vs Zimbabwe 2015: Team Director Ravi Shastri to Skip Tour

Ravi Shastri has been roped in as an analyst in Sky Sports for the Ashes series.

Ravi Shastri was appointed as the director of Team India before the Bangladesh tour.Reuters

Team India director Ravi Shastri will be skipping India's tour of Zimbabwe, scheduled to start on 10 July.

Shastri has been roped in by Sky Sports as an analyst for the Ashes 2015-2016 series, which starts on 8 July. He had committed to Sky Sports even before he was named as the interim coach of Team India.

Shastri had made it clear before the Bangladesh tour that he will not be available for the tour of Zimbabwe as he had already committed to the official broadcaster of the Ashes series in England, said a source close to Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).

In his absence, Team India will be managed by Sanjay Bangar, Bharat Arun and R Sridhar, who have already been associated with the team for almost a year now.

However, BCCI is confident that Shastri will be back for India's tour of Sri Lanka, which is going to be a crucial assignment for him as well as the entire Indian team, which recently suffered a loss in Bangladesh in the ODI series.

Meanwhile, BCCI ended all the speculations on Saturday and confirmed India's tour of Zimbabwe. The selectors chose a second string side for the tour and rested the senior players. MS Dhoni, Suresh Raina, Ravichandran Ashwin, Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and Shikhar Dhawan have been rested for the tour.

Meanwhile, Harbhajan Singh, Robin Uthappa, Manoj Tiwary, Sandeep Sharma, Kedar Jadhav and Manish Pandey made their way into the squad for this tour. Ajinkya Rahane will be leading Team India during the tour.